Another quick update to say that we've been shortlisted as 1 of 12 possible acts to open the main stage of this year's Summer Sundae Festival here in Leicester! Naturally this would be a fantastic gig for us as we'd be opening on the same bill as Supergrass among others. It'd also be great exposure ahead of the single release in September and album (hopefully now) in October!

But of course we need your help and support to win the slot! It's down to an online vote (isn't everything nowadays?) and so we need people to head along to the regional BBC site HERE, select 'Shortwave Fade' and press 'vote'. That really is it, no signup needed - you just click on the page and vote. It only takes a second....so please, help us out by voting TODAY as the vote closes tonight at 11.55pm GMT. Thank you!!

Right that's it - request over. In other news, the album is coming together now. Gavin has been working with the mixes and thinks are taking shape and sounding great! We're hoping to head back to the studio next week to tweak the mixes a little further and it should then be ready in a couple of weeks.... the release is going to be a little later than we'd originally planned but hey, that's always the way - right?! In any case, the 'Leave' single release is still going ahead on 8th September and we now have a bit more of a gap between that and the album release, which is actually a good thing...

We had a fun gig at The Purple Turtle in Camden a couple of nights ago. I believe that there may be some film of it floating around somewhere, which we'll try and track down and post at some point! We're also at Sumo in Leicester this Friday night for anyone in the area. It's our first hometown gig for.....so long - it's going to be great!

That's it for now. Going to post some mixes of the newer album tracks soon, hopefully after we return to the studio next week.....so erm, stay tuned!!

x
 

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

...we posted again - long overdue in fact! Well at least we have some exciting news to write about anyway. We've now finished the album...well recording-wise that is. It's currently being mixed and we're hoping to have it all ready in the next couple of weeks for a release in mid-late September - which is not much later than we'd originally planned so we've not done too badly! The party will be at Notting Hill Arts Club on Sat 13th Sept and we hope some of you can make it....but more on that later!

We had a great time recording the album with Gavin who has possibly the widest knowledge of music/musicians/artists - ranging from the mainstream to the totally obscure - that any of us have ever encountered! He also has an amazing array of equipment, aquired over the years too including speakers that belonged to the stones, a vintage Neve that allegedly appears in Bowie's Space Oddity video (not sure if I can see it though!) and a custom Shergold once owned by Bernard Sumner that we got to use on a couple of tracks (see below)!

Chris with the Shergold..

Finally, just to update you on
some confirmed live dates for next month  - would of course be great to see
any of you can make any of them:

'Leave' front

1st July - The Purple Turtle, Camden

We'll be getting out and gigging a lot more again now we're out of the studio,
so watch this space for more news..

....and we promise to keep it updated! ;)


                                                                                                  
xxx

Leave

Shortwave Fade

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Yes after much agonising we've at last settled on a producer for the album, which is a huge relief to say the least! We finally opted to work with Gavin Monaghan at his studio in Wolverhampton. We'd had Gavin in mind for some time, having heard about him through his earlier work with The Editors and The Twang etc....having met him, we were quite blown away to discover what a truly pleasant and positive chap he is - not that we should have expected him to be otherwise of course ;) .

It's nice (and reassuring) when someone you've just met seems to share the same ideas and perspectives on your music that you do...we found that straight away when when we met with Gavin for the first time, and we're now expecting some very big and epic things when we get in to the studio in May. We're really hyped up about the whole thing right now, and have already written about 3-4 new tracks since the start of the year, some of which are definitely going to be making it onto the album - and we thought we had the tracklisting planned out in December! It's looking like an early August release right now, so we'd better start planning a party.....any ideas would of course be very welcome!

Hope you are all good

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

...since we've posted anything on Vox - and that's probably because it has been! We'll try and keep things updated a bit more frequently from now on...

For now, a quick posting just to say that we made it into yesterday's Telegraph in a feature on slicethepie! I've tried to scan the article below, but couldn't fit the whole page under the scanner unfortunately, so have just got the main bit in that mentions us! If you want to read the whole thing (it's not a bad article) you can view it online here.

Telegraph article

We recently did an interview for slicethepie as well which talks a bit more about our experience of the whole thing - you can view that on the site here. It's been quite reassuring to look through the forums and see that people on the site have been buying quite a few contracts in us already. It doesn't affect our status with the financing etc, but it's good to know that there are people up there ready and willing to start investing money in our album already!

Speaking of which, we're now moving swiftly onward with the album preparation. We've yet to make a final decision on who we'll be working with and where, but we have a pretty good idea at least - please get in touch with any suggestions or recommendations though..they're all appreciated. Our first step towards getting things sorted has been to move out of our old room (small, dirty, unusual smelling and with a large pole in the middle)

Dirty old room..

....and into a far bigger, cleaner, better-sounding rehearsal space. Though it's completely black at the minute, and too dark to photograph - why do we always seem to inherit rooms form metal bands? It's a good place to be though and is setting the mood nicely for working through the album tracks (which we hope to start rough-demoing in a few weeks time). Needless to say we're verrry excited about the new material we have lined up for now! We'll hopefully get some tracks up here as we go along, and see if we can get some early feedback from anyone willing to give their views.

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

...we won! Woohoo! The Slicethepie showcase that is of course..and hence £15,000 to record our first album. It's been such a mad week that I'd not gotten around to posting it here, but needless to say we are all made up about it and looking forward to starting the album in the New Year :) Huge thanks go out to anyone and everyone who supported us by spreading the word and voting for us in the showcase - we couldn't have done it without you!

For anyone who is interested in the whole slicethepie thing (you can read all about how it works here), you can now buy 'backstage passes' in us for £5. These basically pre-order you a copy of the album, allow you access to our backstage area at slicethepie.com (for updates on the album's progress etc), and enable you to buy 5 'contracts' (basically shares in the financial success of the album) at a discounted rate for trading purposes. To be honest, I find the whole trading side of things pretty confusing, but it seems to be pretty popular with some users of the site, and there is money to be made through it all apparently....as long as the artists sell some records at the end of it all that is! :)

In any case, it's all good for us, and we're just happy to be able to put our energy into a whole album's worth of material without searching for money to fund it...or waiting for a recording contract. It was a nice pre-Christmas present to say the least!

In other news, we'll be playing at The Jericho Tavern in Oxford tomorrow night, which should be great as it's an excellent venue and we had a really good time there last time we played. If there are any Oxford people out there please come along and check us out if you can! Doors are at 8pm and it's a fiver to get in....

Happy Xmas all!! (to use the abbreviation that we all hate!)

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Damn! This is exciting - I think I'm going to chew my arm off before this thing is over! For any of you that haven't heard us yelling about it for the last week or so, we are in the indie/rock showcase at slicethepie.com - a site where artists get their songs reviewed, and those with the highest ratings compete for financing (from users of the site) of £15,000 to produce an album. The earnings from said album are then shared with those who helped finance it (hence the slice-a-da-pie).

Along with 13 other artists we made it through to the showcase stage where a final winner is voted upon to gain the financing...and we're now in 1st place! Thanks so much to any and every one who has voted for us so far - and especially to Rachel and Krissy at Vox for featuring our plight on the explore page this week!

We are not yet in the clear however, as the showcase doesn't close until next Wednesday..and it is a very close race at the minute! If you haven't voted already, please take a moment to help us out by registering (for free)  and voting for us in the showcase. It only takes a minute, but we're at the stage where literally every vote makes a difference!

In all the excitement, we had almost forgotten about gigs! We'll be playing at the Lark in the Park, Islington this coming Tuesday (11th December) for any of you London-based Voxers, who'd like to come along. We should be hitting the stage around 9pm, and it'd be great to meet up with any of you that can make it...

xxx

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Just found out that we are currently running 2nd place in the indie/rock showcase at slicethepie.com! This is really exciting news as it means we have a real chance of winning the financing for our first album!! I was contacted yesterday by a journalist running an article on sites like slicethepie and sellaband, who wants to interview us about this so with any luck we'll (hopefully) be getting some national press exposure for it next week. We just need some more votes to clinch it and hopefully the press coverage will give us a boost in that respect!

You could still really help us out by voting for us before December 12th when the showcase closes. All you need to do is follow these few simple steps:

1. Register (for free) at slicethepie here - it only takes a minute.
2. Click on the 'showcases' tab in the menu at the top, then click on 'Indie/Rock 1' - or just follow this link
3. Press 'vote'
4. You will see the details of all 14 showcase artists including ourselves. Click 'vote' next to Shortwave Fade and     confirm.....and that's it!!

Doing this one thing for us will definitely help us out and help make a difference. Huge thanks to any Voxers who have supported us already - it means a lot to us...and please...spread the word!!!

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Got an email this morning telling us we'd made it through to the showcase stage at slicethepie.com! For those of you who've never heard of it, slicethepie is a site where bands/artists get their songs reviewed, and users of the site get paid to review them. The artists that achieve the highest ratings get to compete in a showcase and the winners (decided in a vote) are then eligible for financing (of up to £15,000) to produce an album.

Simple huh?!  Well anyway, we made it into the top 14 acts out of 1000 and are now entered into the indie/rock showcase. This means that we have a real chance of winning the money...and most importantly of getting our new material out in album form!

Of course, in order to do this we need to draw upon the support of everyone we can by getting those who know us to sign up and vote for us (as all the other bands will be doing this also). Joining slicethepie and voting in the showcase is free. It only takes a minute to register here, and once you have registered you can actually start earning money (and yes they really do pay out) by reviewing the various acts in the arena stages. You can view the indie/rock showcase, check out the various acts, and vote - for us of course:) - here

It's all very exciting for us as, at the very least it is a great promotional opportunity....we'd really appreciate any support from you guys in voting and/or spreading the word!

Finally, just a quick reminder that we'll be playing at RoTa at Notting Hill Arts Club this saturday afternoon. It's a free gig and will be showcasing several Shifty Disco bands including Gilbert and Kings of Spain. Bands are on from 4-8pm and we should be onstage around 5.30pm. We should hopefully have our projections back up and running for this one, assuming I can collect all the gear I (stupidly..) left behind at a gig in Nottingham last week!

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Just updating with a few new pics from a promo shoot we did the other week. We used the trusty projector that has seen us through quite a few gigs now, and was quite pleased with how these turned out on the whole. Would love to hear any views or comments you have on them anyhow - as long as they are polite of course ;-)

For Nottingham-based people (are there any on here I wonder? Maybe...who knows? ) we'll be playing The Tone Club at Nottingham Trent Uni this Friday night. It's open to all and only £3.50 on the door so come along if you can. Also, another reminder that we've also got a couple of London gigs coming up next week at The Dublin Castle (Mon 19th) and Notting Hill Arts Club (Sat 24th). See the last post for more details on those, but would be great to catch up with any of you that can make it down to see us.

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Quick update about our London gigs for this month, the first of which will be at The Dublin Castle, Camden on Mon 19th November (see poster and flyer below). We haven't played there for a while and are really looking forward ot this one, not least because we're going to be trying out some new songs for the first time. We'll be on first though (about 8.30pm-ish) so get down there early if you can!

SwF - Dublin Castle poster

SwF - flyer

We'll also be playing at RoTa @ Notting Hill Arts Club the following saturday (24th Nov) as part of a Shifty Disco showcase event which will be featuring some great bands and will be well worth checking out. The saturday RoTa gigs are in the afternoon (4-8pm) and are FREE admission too - definitely not to be missed! Look forward to seeing some of you down there if you can make it..

x

Read and post comments | Send to a friend